


the little hurts

by parsnipit



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Injuries, and dave has to deal with the emotional ramifications of it, bro's an asshole in this one, mentions of nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 12:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsnipit/pseuds/parsnipit
Summary: “I know, but it’s not—just that. I want to be able to trust you to tell me when you’re hurt, when you need me to be careful. And I just feel like—” You spread your hands helplessly. “You don’t know how to do that. You get hurt and unless you’re bleeding to death it’s just like, ‘oh, Karkat, it’s fine’ and ‘oh, Karkat, don’t worry about it, it’s just a bruise, just a scrape, just a cut, it doesn’t matter.’ And it does. It does matter, Dave. I want to know when you’re hurt. I want to know about the bruises and scrapes and cuts, not just the fucking—impalings, or disembowelings. The little hurts are just important to me as the big ones."Beside you, Dave is quiet—the arm around your waist is tense. When you glance at him, he won’t meet your eyes. He must be yearning for his shades. “I—Karkat.” He lets out a soft breath. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t trust you. I do. I just—oh, boy. Are we having a therapy session right now? Are we doing this? For realsies?”





	the little hurts

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: minor blood/injuries, referenced child abuse/neglect, mentions of nsfw
> 
> fff okay so technically this should've been a part of "accords" but it got too big oops (+ it lent itself to a great summary and i didn't know how to fit it into accords' summary so here we are u.u)

“Whoa, when did you get this?” you demand, brushing your fingers (softly, softly, humans are so _fragile)_ beside the crooked gash that runs along the back of Dave’s shoulder. A dull red scab crusts it closed, but it can’t be more than a day old—the skin around it is flushed and inflamed with the newness of injury. You lean down, snuffling suspiciously at it, but there’s no infection-scent to be found. 

“Oh, yeah—so listen, funny story,” Dave says, shifting beneath you. He’s sprawled out on his bed, arms folded beneath his head while you maintain your perch on the small of his back, making a stern study of his wound—the wound he _hadn’t told you about_ before you’d none-so-gently tackled him onto the bed only moments prior to stripping his shirt and binder off. You’d fully intended on pailing your (goddamn fucking adorable) matesprit, but the sight of his injury shuts those instincts down cold. “I was training.”

“Yes…?” You arch an eyebrow at the back of his head, the downy blond thatch of his hair.

“Yes,” Dave agrees.

“Oh, come on. You can’t seriously expect me to believe you managed to casually stab yourself in the _back_ of your shoulder? That has to take, like. An actual _effort.”_

“What can I say? I’m talented.”

“Dave.” You groan. “Dave, for real?”

“Well—okay, see, I stopped to make lunch, so I leaned a sword against the fridge—bad idea, I know, _I know,_ babe—and then kinda sorta forgot about it. I mean, John called, and when your best bro calls you gotta chat him up, so of course I did, and then when I got back to training I forgot to move Monsieur Fridge-Sword and may or may not have tripped into the fridge and, uh, the sword. But it’s really no big deal; it’s not a _stab_ wound, it’s barely a scrape. We cool, my dude.”

You lean back, folding your arms across your chest. “Okay, fine. So you accidentally _scraped_ yourself in the back—you’re a professional klutz, a blunderer extraordinaire. But why didn’t you tell me? I could have hurt you even more.”

“Hey, you’re pushy but you’re not _that_ pushy—I think I would have survived,” he says, huffing out an almost-laugh. “Besides, it’s really not that bad.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Wait, hold up, it’s not?”

“No.” You scowl at his back, swallowing hard, and slide off of him to sit on the edge of the bed. You pull your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. Fuck, but you pity this fool of a human. “Dummy.”

“Woah, hang on—” You hear Dave moving behind you, sitting up and inching in your direction. “Dude, are you actually upset?”

You scowl _harder._ “Yes.”

“Well, shit.” He shuffles around to sit beside you, pressing your sides together. “I’m—sorry? I really didn’t think it was that important or I would’ve told you. Was this another cultural faux pas? Should I add it to the list?” When you don’t respond, he leans down and rubs his cheek against your shoulder. “Forgive meee? My darling, my love, my dearest, oh please grant me your benevolent forgiveness for this sin, I confess, I shall grovel at your feet and lavish you with the sacrifices of your people, I shall—”

“Oh, shut up.” You elbow him, trying hard not to smile. “Don’t make fun of your god.”

“Of course not, m’lord,” Dave agrees solicitously, wrapping his arm around your waist. “Can, uh—would my god be generous enough to tell his humble worshipper what I did wrong?”

You lean your head against his shoulder, taking a deep breath. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know. I don’t want you to, either.” He pauses, then winks and adds, “Most of the time, anyway.”

You snort, shaking your head. “I know, but it’s not—just that. I want to be able to trust you to _tell me_ when you’re hurt, when you need me to be careful. And I just feel like—” You spread your hands helplessly. “You don’t know how to do that. You get hurt and unless you’re bleeding to death it’s just like, ‘oh, Karkat, it’s fine’ and ‘oh, Karkat, don’t worry about it, it’s just a bruise, just a scrape, just a cut, it doesn’t matter.’ And it _does._ It _does_ matter, Dave. I want to know when you’re hurt. I want to know about the bruises and scrapes and cuts, not just the fucking— _impalings,_ or _disembowelings._ The little hurts are just important to me as the big ones.”

Beside you, Dave is quiet—the arm around your waist is tense. When you glance at him, he won’t meet your eyes. He must be yearning for his shades. “I—Karkat.” He lets out a soft breath. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t trust you. I do. I just—oh, boy. Are we having a therapy session right now? Are we doing this? For realsies?”

You want to. You want to tear his problems out of him, you want to examine them and polish them and _fix them,_ but you also—you also know you can’t do that unless he wants you to, unless he’s willing and ready to work with you. (You’d discovered that the hard way, sweeps ago, when the both of you were still terrified children stumbling through the fall and rise of a multiverse and a relationship.) “Only if you want to,” you say, knocking your temple gently against his. “If you wanna go back to badass sexytimes we can. I’m gonna look at that cut first, though.”

“Unfortunately, I think lil Dave has crawled under a couch to hide for the foreseeable future,” Dave says, patting his crotch sympathetically. “Emotions scare him. Emotions and fireworks—oh and sometimes bells.”

“Naturally. Give my apologies to him.”

“Will do.”

“I’ll make it up to him next time.”

“He looks forward to it.”

“Good. So is that a yes on the emotions?”

“Well, nothing to lose, now that lil Dave’s gone. Sure. Hit me up with those emotions, bro.”

“How come you don’t tell me about all the little things that hurt? Is it something I did?”

“Wow, don’t hold back at all. Um—shit.” He rubs the back of his neck, ruffles his hair. “No. No, it’s not anything you did, I promise. It’s just—and god, please hold back on the pity, I can’t handle it. Not the troll-pity, the human-pity. You get it. Anyway, it’s just how I was raised, I guess.” He shrugs. “Bro didn’t care much if I was hurt, unless I was bleeding to death or some shit. He said it was just a part of life, that I needed to get used to it, so I did. It’s just a habit now. I didn’t mean for it to make you feel bad.”

You take a deep breath. Don’t overreact; it scares him. “Right. That’s okay. Thanks for telling me.” You look over at him and his face is flushed with humiliation, his shoulders hunched. You reach up to rub soothing, firm circles between his shoulders. “Hey, seriously. It’s okay. C’mere—” You unfold yourself, turn to face him, and he lets you draw him into your lap. He burrows into the crook of your neck, his arms wrapping around your chest, and you cradle the back of his head. His hair is soft under your fingers, so much finer than troll hair could ever hope to be. “You’re a badass.”

“I’m a badass,” he murmurs in agreement.

“And it’s okay for badasses to have emotions.”

He hums softly.

“And for them to have problems.”

He nudges his nose against your jaw, nips softly beneath your chin—a gesture he learned from you, no doubt, since humans lack scent-marking instincts. You turn your head obligingly to mark his hair and face, scratching your claws gently across his back. Once you’re done marking him, he leans back and bumps his own jaw across your head and horns. He leaves no self-scent behind, but your instincts preen happily at the movement anyhow. Your mate. Yours. 

“But you know something?” you murmur, kneading at his shoulders.

“I know lots of somethings, bro. To which are you referring?”

You kiss his ear. “I care if you’re hurt. Your friends, your quadrants, we care if you’re hurt. We aren’t your brother. We aren’t going to ignore your pain, we aren’t going to make fun of you for coming to us to be cared for, or for asking us to be gentle. I want to know when you’re hurt, Dave. I want to take care of you.”

Dave takes a slow, shuddering breath and you squeeze him gently. 

“Please?” you murmur. “Let me take care of you, leiren-vru.”

He hesitates, then nods jerkily, and you rock him slowly for a moment, let him gather himself before you guide him to sprawl out on his stomach again. You touch the small of his back softly before you duck out of the respiteblock, and you’re back as quickly as you can be, a first-aid kit cradled in your arms. You set it on the bedside table before straddling Dave’s lower back again, leaning down to kiss the back of his neck. You croon comfortingly to him—not quite a moirailsong but close enough, you hope, to help calm him down. You know it’s scary for him, being this vulnerable, and you love him fucking _fiercely_ in the moment. 

“Did you clean this up yourself?” you ask, gently running a warm, soapy washcloth across the wound. Dave nods, and you hear his throat click as he swallows. “It must’ve been hard to reach.”

“Just—rinsed it off in the shower,” he murmurs quietly. “Couldn’t do much else.”

“Poor thing.” You nuzzle up against his ear, clicking softly and soothingly. “Tell me next time? I can help you. I love being able to help you.”

He shudders beneath you, and you carefully wipe away the soap with a dry washcloth. “I’ll—try, fuck. I’ll try.”

“Good.” You chirr approvingly. “That’s all I can ask. Now—” You bite softly at the back of his neck—another futile troll gesture that means shit-all to a human, but one you’ve used enough that he’s doubtlessly learned the meaning of it. _Stay right here, no moving._ “—hold still for me.” 

He flashes you a thumbs-up, so you rasp your tongue lovingly across the nape of his neck before shifting down to lap at his wound. There’s not much cleaning to be done, since it’s already scabbed over, but you give it your best effort anyway. Your saliva should, at the very least, help soothe any irritation there and ascertain that you’ve gotten all of the soap off. Besides, you’re not quite sure how it feels to a human, but for trolls, anyhow, the mere act of tongue-bathing is a balm in and of itself. Once you’ve finished that, you slather the cut in antibiotic ointment and then tape a gauze bandage across it. 

“There,” you murmur, leaning forward to lay on top of him, careful to keep your weight away from the wound. “All done. You did so well—you’re such a brave bastard, you know that?” You expect him to snark back at you, and when he doesn’t, you chitter in alarm and lean forward, nuzzling at his cheek. “Dave? Are you okay?”

“Mm-hm.” He doesn’t move his face from the pillows. You prick your ears, hear the tremble in his breath. 

“Oh, Dave. Hey, it’s okay—it’s okay, come here—” You squirm around to lay next to him, tugging him into your arms. Nuzzle his face, nip his jaw and ear until he rolls to face you. He scrubs a wrist roughly across his face, but not before you see the tear tracks there. Your heart aches, and you croon wordless comfort at him, tangling your legs together and carding your fingers through his hair; he shudders violently and buries his face against your throat again. “It’s alright, you’re alright, baby boy. I’ve got you. It’s okay to cry, it’s okay—” 

You’ve told him before and you’ll tell him again; sweeps of emotional stunting don’t just vanish overnight. But he’s gotten better—only a year ago, the act of crying in front of you would send him spiraling into a panic and withdrawing into himself almost immediately. Now, though he shivers in fear, he stays close to you and lets you comfort him, for which you are immensely grateful. You murmur sweet nothings in English and Alternian both, running your hands over every bit of him you can reach, chirping and rattling off slow, consoling purrs whenever his breath hitches. 

When he settles, only a few moments later, he allows you to cradle his face and wipe his tears away with your thumbs. “Hey,” he croaks. “‘What’s up?”

You headbutt him softly, nuzzle your nose to his. “My levels of utter shameless affection for you.”

This statement is rewarded with the tiniest, most beautiful fucking smile. You wrap yourself around him and hug him tightly, settling into a full, throbbing purr as he hugs you back. He traces shapes across your back, stars and hearts and swords, and you nuzzle into his hair and breathe in the scents that cling to him—metal polish and sweat, apple juice and tears.

“I love you,” you murmur. “So much. You know that?”

“You remind me regularly,” he says, patting your butt affectionately. “Guess what?”

“What?”

He squeezes you hard. “I love you too.” Your purr rackets up another few notches. He laughs and presses a palm to your chest to feel the rumble. “Fuckin’ motorboat.”

 _Hell yeah,_ you’re the motorboat. How could you not be, when you have the world’s best matesprit wrapped up and safe in your arms, telling you _he loves you too?_ You are one lucky-ass motorboat, that’s for sure, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> p.s. the word karkat uses as a pet-name is (made-up) alternian for little/soft/small mate!


End file.
